Hi all, Let me try to clarify some of these points concerning a national Chapter vs. city Chapters. The question that is important to consider if you opt for a national Chapter is how you will reach out to Chapter members from other regions. Will you be able to organize events outside of Nairobi as well? (This should be possible if you manage to have enough active Chapter members in other regions as well). Will you be able to offer remote participation in your meetings for those who do not live in Nairobi and who might not be able to travel to Nairobi? The suggestion of my colleagues last week to think about city Chapters was to create stand-alone city-Chapters - which would be separate Chapters (not sub-Chapters in any way) directly chartered by the Internet Society global - but please note that we are not against a national Chapter at all, as long as it remains inclusive and accessible to everyone. As you can see on this map: http://www.isoc.org/apps/maps/, there are for example various city-Chapters in India (e.g. Internet Society Chennai Chapter, Internet Society Kolkota Chapter, etc.) and Spain. In Spain there is even a national Chapter alongside a series of city Chapters. The important thing here is that these Chapters should not be competitive in any way. The bylaws of the national Chapter should also be clear about the fact that it doesn't claim exclusiveness in terms of its geographical scope in order to avoid conflicts among these Chapters. The creation and official chartering of sub-chapters by an Internet Society Chapter would actually raise a series of legal issues linked to the protection of the Internet Society and "Internet Society Kenya Chapter"-trademark, which will be protected by the Internet Society once the Kenya Chapter will be chartered by ISOC global as one of its Chapters; this does not include the right for the Chapter to further distribute these trademark rights to sub-Chapters. In addition to these legal problems, the creation of a sub-Chapter hierarchy would not benefit the sub-Chapters in any way when it comes to the acquisition of supplementary funds (e.g. event funding, travel fellowships). Also in terms of communicating with these members, we are not in favour of creating an additional layer that might make reaching out to our members through such a hierarchy more difficult. We nevertheless see the difficulty of reaching out to various groups over a geographically very large area. Some solutions to this might include the creation of local "contact groups" or "interest groups" of a national Chapter (e.g. groups with a focus on specific ICT policy or technical issues). The members of these groups would still be direct members of the Internet Society Kenya Chapter (and thus members of ISOC). I hope you find these explanations helpful - and sorry for the length of this message! Best regards, Christine --------------------------------------------------------------- Internet Society (ISOC) Christine Saegesser Baethge Manager, Chapter Development Website: www.InternetSociety.org --------------------------------------------------------------- On Oct 7, 2011, at 8:29 AM, McTim wrote:
On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com> wrote:
McTim, Based on my understanding of the feedback from various members there is a feeling that we have a country chapter first, to enable us take off of since the City Chapters might not be self sustaining at the moment after which we can start forming city chapters, i think after forming a team some of our members based in the Cities can start of the City Chapters with the help of the Country Chapter,
I think the key point to consider is that city chapters CANNOT be started if there is a national Chapter. I'm not sure about "sub-chapters", perhaps Christine from ISOC can advise us.
i agree with you Mctim that we should find a way of
working with other Industry players such as TESPOK and KeNIC, i noticed thatb in most countries there is a close working relationship between the ISOC Chapters and the ccTLD community can we pursue this route?
Of course, but I think it is the mobicos that have the deepest pockets. If we can be seen to help them with Universal Service obligations (by spreading the edge of the network) then they could see a way to help us I am speculating).
-- Cheers,
McTim "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel _______________________________________________ isoc mailing list isoc@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/isoc